It was a simultaneously awesome and bleh playdate - kind of a weird mix of folks who mostly didn't know each other, hoping to improve with time. Anyways - she is totally content when she's awake. In those three hours she learned to jump on the bed and actually clear it! I mean, she's exhausted, so she falls down a lot and does stupid things, but she's happy to be up.

Have a baby who won't sleep? Read this, you'll get a laugh. It's a baby conspiracy, lol

How to Stop Mummy Sleeping Through the Night!

OK, here's my situation. My Mummy has had me for almost 7 months. The first few months were great. I cried, she picked me up and fed me, anytime, day or night. Then something happened.

Over the last few weeks, she has been trying to STTN (sleep through the night). At first, I thought it was just a phase, but it is only getting worse. I've talked to other babies, and it seems like its pretty common after Mummies have had us for around 6 months.

Here's the thing: these Mummies don't really need to sleep. Its just a habit. Many of them have had some 30 years to sleep and they just don't need it anymore. So I am implementing a plan. I call it theCrybaby Shuffle. It goes like this:

Night 1: cry every 3 hours until you get fed. I know, its hard. Its hard to see your Mummy upset over your crying. Just keep reminding yourself, its for her own good.

Night 2: cry every 2 hours until you get fed.

Night 3: every hour. Most Mummies will start to respond more quickly after about 3 nights. Some Mummies are more alert, and may resist the change longer. These Mummies may stand in your doorway for hours, shhhh-ing. Don’t give in. I cannot stress this enough: CONSISTENCY IS KEY!! If you let her STTN (sleep through the night), just once, she will expect it every night. I KNOW ITS HARD! But she really doesn’t need the sleep, she’s just resisting the change.

If you have an especially alert Mummy, you can stop crying for about 10 minutes, just long enough for her to go back to bed and start to fall asleep. Then cry again. It WILL eventually work. My Mummy once stayed awake for 10 hours straight, so I know she can do it. Last night, I cried every hour. You just have to decide to stick to it and just go for it. BE CONSISTENT!

I cried for any reason I could come up with. My sleep sack tickled my foot. I felt a wrinkle under the sheet. My mobile made a shadow on the wall. I burped, and it tasted like pears. I hadn’t eaten pears since lunch, what’s up with that? The cat said "meow". I should know. My Mummy reminds me of this about 20 times a day. LOL. Once I cried just because I liked how it sounded when it echoed on the monitor in the other room. Too hot, too cold, just right - doesn’t matter! Keep crying!! It took awhile, but it worked. She fed me at 4am. Tomorrow night, my goal is 3:30am. You need to slowly shorten the interval between feedings in order to reset your Mummies internal clocks.

Sometimes my Mummy will call for reinforcements by sending in Daddy. Don’t worry, Daddies are not set up for not needing sleep the way Mummies are. They can only handle a few pats and shhing before they declare defeat and send in the Mummy.

Also, be wary of the sleep sheep with rain noises. I like to give Mummy false hope that listening to the rain puts me to sleep sometimes I pretend to close my eyes and be asleep and then wait until I know Mummy is settling back to sleep to spring a surprise cry attack. If she doesn’t get to me fast enough I follow up with my fake cough and gag noise that always has her running to the crib.

At some point I am positive she will start to realise that she really doesn’t really need sleep.

P.S. Don’t let those rubber things fool you, no matter how long you suck on them, no milk will come out. Trust me.

_________________My oven is bigger on the inside, and it produces lots of wibbly wobbly, cake wakey... stuff. - The PoopieB.

Ah, asleep within an hour. And we took an amazing 2.5 hour nap this afternoon together (which I pretty much never woke up from, spent most of the rest of the day trying to sleep on the couch, nobody would let me do it). Now it's hot bath and book time for Mama.

I did a 24 hour shift on Friday and was so worried about my poor partner being up all night, since he had to go to work in the morning as soon as I got home. Scarlett only woke up twice all night-- once he gave her a bottle and the other time she just went back to sleep on her own. I'm happy for him, but what the fizzle! Either it's my boobs that are waking her up all night or maybe my partner just sleeps more soundly and she was actually waking up every hour but he didn't notice. I'm tired.

I caved and brought the kid into my bed at 3am when she woke up for snuggles/bottle. Whoops. My husband is on a hiking trip for the weekend and I was unamused about the idea of snuggling in her bed and falling asleep there. She woke up SMILING like she was about as happy as she could possibly be about where she was finding herself. Ugh. Whoops again.

We are having fussy teething issues this weekend. She keeps waking up and then she's crabby. The only cute thing about it is that she is tucking her top lip under her teeth and into her mouth so she looks like an old man with without dentures.

I have so much knee pain that it takes me a long time to fall asleep and just as I do, L starts screaming. I don't know what is worse, just staying awake with knee pain or falling asleep for a few minutes of respite to be jolted awake by screaming. Argharghargh! I need some sleep kiddo!

_________________My oven is bigger on the inside, and it produces lots of wibbly wobbly, cake wakey... stuff. - The PoopieB.

I've honestly really been missing Malka in the big bed. It's harder for me to fall asleep without her and I miss touching her in my sleep. But having her out has been really good for my marriage so far. I think the marriage has to win this one.

Oh no! I was wondering how your flight went. I hope you get a break today.

Ada was up from 12-2ish for some reason last night. Andy tried so hard to get her back to sleep but eventually she ended up in bed with me. I must have fallen asleep while she was still squirming around because I woke up to a loud thump this morning . She fell asleep at the foot of the bed and rolled off this morning. Whoops.

Last edited by sashi on Mon Jan 21, 2013 11:31 am, edited 1 time in total.

We had something similar Sashi - we have high baby rails and somehow she threw herself over them and dropped three feet onto the hard wood floor. No harm, no blood and she seemed fine 5 minutes later. But man was that nervewracking. Plus its a space of less than a food between the bed and a sharp radiator cover that she completely missed.

How is Ada feeling? Is it pneumonia? How are you doing?

_________________My oven is bigger on the inside, and it produces lots of wibbly wobbly, cake wakey... stuff. - The PoopieB.

Oh yeah, Ada cried for a couple of min but I think it was more of the shock of being woken by the fall.

It ends up its not pneumonia! (The doctor thought it sounded like it last week when she listened to her chest.) But she's still got something going on. Mostly congestion it seems but there's still a little coughing and a funny noise. Hopefully it clears up in the next couple of days so we don't have to go back to the doctor. I can't figure out how to not get her to cry the minute we get into an exam room. Besides that she's her normal nonstop self :-) I'm much better too.Refinnej, I was chowing down on Thai food...by myself! I think it was the first time I went into manhattan alone in who knows how long. I even read a book while eating, and then went shopping for new boots. It was lovely, and really weird not having to entertain a toddler on the subway.

Today was just shitty for sleep. She didn't nap despite an hour of tries, as in me putting her in my carrier and rocking her, which always works, and was overexhausted all day. She crashed at 7pm and then at 9:30pm miraculously resurrected. Then followed 3.5hrs of trying to put her back to sleep. Its 1 am and she is out cold. Every single time she heard a noise, she'd start yelling Papapapapa! Frick on a stick with a brick

How do I make this child nap?

_________________My oven is bigger on the inside, and it produces lots of wibbly wobbly, cake wakey... stuff. - The PoopieB.

Pretty much it seems all of you guys co-slept. But did anybody who wasn't a co-sleeper have a swaddled baby? My 6 month old WILL NOT sleep unless he is swaddled and he is now so strong I can't keep him swaddled at all. We probably reswaddle 5-10 times at night now...it is getting so old. The parenting sites all say to swaddle with one arm free for a few nights, and then move on to both arms free...but he just wails and cries and does not sleep if his isn't pinioned down. My pedi recommended wrapping an ACE bandage around his swaddle but I really am afraid I will get it too tight and cut off circulation, or too loose and have 6 feet of elastic wrap floating around his crib. I am looking as some of the "swaddle transition" products but at $40 a pop I just don't know. Anyone been in this situation and have advice?

annasrobbie, Lucy was not a co-sleeper and needed swaddled. We always used a miracle blanket for her. It was freaking awesome - like a baby straight jacket that was rarely broken. I highly recommend it, but I know it's generally recommended to stop swaddling once they can roll over, so you might be approaching that point? I wish I had advice for transitioning. We just cut the swaddle cold turkey when she outgrew it, and she was fine....(total miracle, if you ask me)

Oh - Charlie desperately needed swaddling at day care. What worked to get him to sleep without it (he outgrew the miracle blanket at around 6 or 7 months) was putting him to sleep on his belly. I know I'm the worst parent in the world, but it worked.

_________________It's not like I'm busting out my boobie tassles and shouting, "BEHOLD! THE MIRACLE OF LIFE!" - TheCrabbyCrafter